Stars in my Black and Blue Sky
by knittycat99
Summary: Different ways of dealing with pain; the things music can do for you; finding the strength to stand up; the power of friends and family. A 4.19 post-ep.


**_A/N_****_: _**_Un-beta'ed 4.19 post-ep._

* * *

Marley sees their faces, Blaine's and Sam's and Unique's, when she sits down to write once all her homework is done.

She sees their faces and feels their shock and hurt in every beat of her heart.

She feels like she's a highly inadequate friend because most days she's still struggling to take care of _herself_, so how can she even begin to do anything for _them_?

Except. Unique is like the sister Marley's always wanted, and Sam and Blaine are like the Glee club's best and crazy big brothers.

Marley can't take their shock and hurt away, but she knows what it feels like to be alone in a room full of people.

She can't give them a lot, but she can give them her heart.

* * *

There are days when Blaine still feels the gray seeping in. It's not like it used to be, before he gave in and cried in Miss Pillsbury's office because he didn't know how to make it through another day and he needed _help_. Most days, his mind is quiet and he feels steady and strong.

Mr. Schue's anger makes Blaine shaky and nervous, though, and when he gets up the next day he chooses his clothes carefully. He hopes that if his outfit projects calm and confidence then maybe his thoughts will follow suit instead of making him want to hide away and let the world go on without him until he can breathe again.

He knows enough about himself, now, to know that he just has to keep going when he feels like this; everything will settle down in a day or two and the gray will just be a memory.

Except. The day is harder than he expects, and he's just so _tired_ at the end of it.

He really wants to hurry off under a pretense of something else to do when Marley grabs him and starts tugging him toward the auditorium, but when he looks into her eyes she seems fragile like he feels and he can't just walk away from her.

* * *

Sam knows he's falling apart. He can feel it happening, can't stop it. He secretly wants someone to notice, to say something, to just make everything better, but nobody does. He isn't sure if it's because nobody notices or nobody cares.

He decides, finally, that he kind of doesn't even want to know.

He sees the rest of them falling, too, but he can't stop them any more than he can stop himself.

He can't even stand up to Mr. Schue to defend Marley, which is why he doesn't say no when she asks him to meet her in the auditorium after school.

Who knows. Maybe he'll feel a little better afterwards.

* * *

Unique dresses carefully every day. She has to make it out of the house with her parents thinking that she's still Wade, still _their little boy_.

Sometimes she wants them to catch her, wants them to force the issue so that she can finally tell them all the things they refuse to see.

She isn't Wade, not anymore.

She never _has_ been Wade, it just took her so long to figure it out . . .

Unique knows that Mr. Schue is oblivious and kind of an asshole, but everyone else in Glee actually _sees_ her. That choir room is still her sanctuary, and Mr. Schue's blatant inability to understand anything about her makes her breath catch in her chest.

Is she imagining that the other kids accept her? Is she delusional to hope that she'll _ever_ be accepted in the world?

Standing at the piano, looking at Marley and Blaine and Sam, Unique knows.

She _has_ a place. She _has_ people who love her and value her.

* * *

Sam closes his eyes and lets the music flow through him.

For a few minutes, the fiery fear that gave birth to Evan banks down to a startling coolness.

* * *

Blaine sings, lets Marley's words pour out of him.

It's cleansing, singing like this with the others who wear their scars and their pain a little too close to the surface for most people's comfort.

The gray flickers once, twice, at the edges of his brain, but he keeps singing.

When the last notes drift away he feels light.

He smiles, and it's real.

* * *

Marley is proud, hearing the others sing her song, her words, her gift to them. It feels like magic, like power.

It's nowhere near enough. Marley knows she can't make everything better, but maybe a song is a start.

* * *

When they're done singing, Unique wraps one arm through Marley's and the other through Blaine's. She nods at Sam, still standing a little apart from the rest of them, and Blaine reaches out, pulls Sam in so he's not alone.

"Come on," she says, tipping her chin up, feeling a little strong and a lot defiant. "We're going to Unique's."

They're an odd group, Unique knows, piling into Blaine's car, but it feels like something important happened in that auditorium and she isn't ready for it to end yet.

Her mother's car is in the driveway when Blaine parks carefully along the front of the house. Unique grabs them, these misfits. _Her_ misfits. _Her_ family. She grabs them and drags them up the walk and into the house, tries to pull Blaine back from wherever he went on the drive, his gaze a little down and pulled away; tries to pull Marley out of that damn cycle of self-doubt Unique _knows_ she falls into when there's nothing else to occupy her mind; tries to hold onto the fragile thread of _Sam_ that's there, tentative and weak and ready to hide behind _Evan_ at the first hint of pressure.

She keeps talking, tugs them all through the front door. Their weakness is making her strong, giving her power. If she can hold _them_ up she sure as hell can hold herself up.

"Wade?" Her mother's voice floats out from the kitchen. "Is that you? Who's with you?"

Unique takes a breath. She grips Marley's hand, feels Blaine squeeze her other hand like he just _knows_ what it feels like to be who she is in a house like this.

She's not holding them up. They're holding her up. She isn't alone, and she doesn't have to do _this_ alone, either.

"I'm _Unique_, Mama," she calls out, her voice oddly strong for all the shaking the rest of her body is doing. "I'm Unique."


End file.
